


Cheating by an Enhanced Individual

by TUNiU



Series: Let's See How Many Endgame Fix-its I Will Write [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-09 19:34:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18644680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TUNiU/pseuds/TUNiU
Summary: I swore I wouldn't do an Endgame fix-it. I swore to myself. I can't even summarize the plot of this fic without spoiling Endgame. Peter takes it upon himself to fix the ending of Endgame.Un beta-ed.





	1. Peter Parker

**Author's Note:**

> So this is written in my rambling no coherency found style. 
> 
> Also just a little note: there are over 275,000 MCU fics currently on Ao3. And just from April 24th to April 28th, 3,427 fics have been added. The MCU fic collection is blindingly, staggeringly, incomprehensible. I have no doubt this fic will just get lost in the rush.

Years pass. The post-comeback world looks a lot like the post-snap world. Peter Parker wouldn’t know, he wasn’t there for the first part. He can see the consequences though, the detritus of 3.7 billion lives snuffed out in an instant. It’s all still there. In abandoned cars, and houses. He can see the 5 years lived alone in the lines on May’s face. It’s like everyone in the world has PTSD--half the world from living in the apocalypse and half the world from coming home to an apocalypse.

* * *

 

His license and passport says he’s 22 years old. There’s a little ‘D’ in the corner. ‘D’ for dusted. ‘D’ for do not serve alcohol. ‘D’ for did not exist for the years 2018 to 2023. Ned and MJ have ‘D’s too. Peter feels glad for that, then he feels ashamed for being happy his friends got dusted with him. When he can make it to the sessions, Sam Wilson tells him his feelings are valid. Everyone is feeling a mix of things, the important thing is to try and reconnect with loved ones, rebuild your life. 

* * *

 

Years pass. He gets his degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. He’s not a straight-A student, it’s hard to balance the workload with Spidermaning. But he gets respectable grades. He graduates and there are no jobs. Not really. It’s only been five years since everyone came back, the world hasn’t really recovered. Probably won’t recover for generations. The best money is still in community clean up. He’s a college graduate with no job who spends all his time Spidermanning and living at the Avengers Compound. His rooms have comic books and posters and action figures. He feels he never quite grows up. 

* * *

 

One on shelf in his room, surrounded by nothing else is a single portrait: him and Mr. Stark holding up his certificate for the Stark Internship. (He only got it because Midtown High school stopped believing him about his internship. He would never have been brave enough to ask for a photo with Mr. Stark. He wishes he had been brave enough for a lot of things.

He’s an enhanced individual.

There are a lot of things he’d do, if he had the chance.)

* * *

 

The thing is, Peter has a lot of free time. To think. He watches a lot of old television. He’s always liked the sci-fi best, the Doctor Whos and Star Wars, Star Treks and Aliens. He likes the episodes where the good guys cheat the universe. The universe is a cold cruel thing and Peter loves it anytime the heroes can cheat and live happily ever after.

* * *

 

A thought niggles in Peter’s brain…Captain America got to grow old with his sweetheart and the timeline is not broken. He didn’t save Bucky, he didn’t stop Hydra. He just stole his happy ending from under the universe’s nose.

Later, when all is done, he will look at the remains of his ruined left hand. He will watch as Doctor Strange cuts it off with magic. He will listen as the Avengers, all except one of them, yells at him for his idiocy.

* * *

 

Now, he just feels selfish. There is no way he is the only one to think of what-ifs. His pain does not outweigh Miss Potts’ or Happy Hogan’s or Colonel Rhodes’. He can’t talk to them about this. He can’t talk to anyone about this. He can’t leave it in a digital file, or even write down one scrap of an idea.

Because they would stop him.

Of course they would.

He’s gonna get himself killed.

Peter gets a job at Pym Technologies. It’s the best place to learn about the Quantum Realm and time travel.

* * *

 

He knows something everyone else doesn’t. When Peter undusted on Titan, he was the last one on the moon to come back. He came back to a heated argument between Mr. Lord and the angry blue man. The angry blue man tells Mr. Lord that they will use the stones to bring back Gamora, and Mr. Lord shouts back that they barely survived using one stone together. Peter doesn’t have time to ask what they’re talking about before Mr. Strange creates the loopy portals he’s always making, and then they’re off to the biggest battlefield Peter has ever seen. Bigger than the Battle at Helm’s Deep, and this one is real, this one is really real. 

People are dying around him, there’s heads and viscera and limbs strewn everywhere. He tells Karen to activate his suit’s instant kill mode. Because he can feel himself holding back. He can’t-- aliens are trying to kill him and his punches are enough to stop a city bus but he just...can’t.

He has the gauntlet. He doesn’t know yet about Mr. Hulk’s injury. Even if he did, if he knew then what he knows now...

* * *

 

He had the gauntlet in his hands.

A lot of people had the gauntlet in their hands.

He’s what Mr. Fury calls an enhanced individual.

* * *

 

So he learns about time travel. About cheating the universe. He learns that the Avengers actions that day in 2023 created splinter timelines that they tried to put back. They almost put back all of them. The Thanos that died that day was from a splinter that now will never go back. In that universe, Thanos never comes to Earth, there is never a Snap. Peter finds it a small comfort that somewhere out there is a universe where Mr. Stark never died. He hopes everyone is very happy in that universe. 

He is so blisteringly angry that Steve Rogers gets to cheat time and no one yells at him. No one wants to yell at an old man, never mind that if he wanted he could still bench press a city bus. If he wanted he could be young again.

Everyone lost something precious.

Peter can’t fix that.

* * *

 

He gets one shot at this. Just one. 

Peter doesn’t wear his suit when he breaks into Scott Langs’ rooms in the Avengers Compound. He doesn’t carry his phone or his watch or anything electronic. Scott is away to spend time with Hope and Cassie. Most of the Avengers are away, they don’t actually live here, not like Peter.

He steals one of the spare Ant Man suits. Scott doesn’t have a fancy wall of suits like some Avengers do, with hero lighting and protective glass. Scott keeps his suits on a shelf above his desk in miniature form.

Peter has trained with the Avengers for years and years, he knows how the ant man suits work. He embiggens it, puts in on, and uses it to to break into the secure storage vault where they keep the time machine. Because of course they kept it after Steve returned the long way round. It’s a time machine. As he’s staring at the portal interface he realizes, there is no way he should have gotten this far. He may not be wearing anything electronic but the Avengers Compound is stacked with surveillance and automated systems.

“Friday?” he calls out.

“Yes, Peter?”

“You’re not stopping me.”

A display case for the quantum suits opens automatically. “No, Peter. Bring boss home.”

* * *

 

This is what happens: Peter travels to the Avengers Compound 2023, five years ago. He races through the battlefield, his mask on, sidestepping fights. His only goal is to reach Mr. Stark

Mr . Stark is on his knees, the infinity stones fusing to his gauntlet. Lines of pure energy spark and warp up his arm. It’s burning him up just wearing the stones. Peter has one shot at this. He’s not brave enough to try again.

“I am inevitable,” Thanos proclaims with his empty gauntlet, powerless.

Peter slides up behind Mr. Stark, he reaches out with his left hand.

“And….I...am...Ironman,” Mr. Stark proclaims. He’s bloody and triumphant as he snaps his fingers. Peter has a hold of the gauntlet. The power stream splits, half to him and half to Mr. Stark. The power surges up his arm. It’s agony. He can feel as it burns away his skin, his muscles, he can feel it spark across his heart.

“Peter!” Mr. Stark screams at him. Peter will not let go.

He is an enhanced individual. He is in absolute agony, but there is no time. He has to cheat. He still has to cheat. Tony Stark dies on the battlefield. Peter rips the destroyed iron man gauntlet off Mr. Starks arm, he isn't gentle, there's no time. A lot of charred skin and ruined muscle is left behind. Enough that the current avengers will assume the power burnt him all up. The spare quantum suit forms over Mr. Stark and Peter warps the two of them back to the Avengers Compound 2028.  His legs don’t hold him up on arrival and he crashes to the receiving pad. He can hear alarms and Mr. Stark shouting at him

* * *

 

Later, Doctor Strange will amputate Peter’s left arm at the elbow. It might grow back, it might not, depends on how much of a spider he is. Mr. Stark loses his right arm to the shoulder. It won’t grow back. Mr. Stark doesn’t care. He holds his now eight year old daughter in his arm as he lays in his hospital bed.

Everyone yells at Peter.

A lot.


	2. James Rhodes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is continuity? I didn't think I would be expanding this fic.

Rhodey’s the first one to see what Peter has done. He was just at the Compound to get an upgrade on the nanites in his leg struts, but FRIDAY told him Peter was having nightmares again, so he decided to stay the night. Maybe he could be there for Peter if he wandered the halls in the middle of the night after a nightmare.

The alarms wake him up. Before he even knows what’s happening, FRIDAY takes control of Rhodey’s legs and walks him down the halls. He doesn’t mind. She’s a good co-pilot. The nanites in his struts don’t tesselate further. They don’t form the Iron Patriot suit around his body.

“Mr. Rhodes, boss has returned,” FRIDAY tells him. “He and Peter need medical attention. I have called in Doctors Strange and Cho.”

_‘Needs medical attention’_...that’s a sterile way of putting the utter carnage Rhodey sees when he enters the storage archive for the old time machine.

There are scenes that will haunt Rhodey for the rest of his life: one is seeing what's left of his best friend Tony's convoy 20 years ago in Afghanistan...two is seeing Tony's burnt iron man gauntlet with all the infinity stones seared onto its surface. (Tony's shriveled hand is inside the gauntlet and that's all they ever find of him, when the battle is done and Thanos' forces are dust).

This is the third:

Tony, burnt, crippled, bleeding, with a mangled stump where his right hand used to be, dragging himself across the floor to reach Peter, who just lies there, like his strings were cut. Tony has been dead for five years, but here he is, making a blood trail across the time machine's surface.

* * *

 

Five years ago, Thanos’s forces suddenly dissipate into dust. All the ships and people just vanish.

“Colonel Rhodes, boss is dying,” FRIDAY gently tells him.

The battlefield is huge, no front or line you shall not cross, just tiny skirmishes everywhere. He’s had to rely on his sensors more than he’d like, to halt hits that might damage any ally. He has no idea where anyone is, he doesn’t know where his best friend is dying. FRIDAY takes control of his suit and flies him across the battlefield.

He lands next to Peter, bawling in Pepper’s arms. On the ground is a torn and mangled Iron Man gauntlet with the infinity stones fused in place.

They will never find Tony’s body.

* * *

 

Now, Tony is croaking out Peter's name trying to reach him. Rhodey reaches them first. Tony looks up at Rhodey with both mental and physical agony. Rhodey checks Peter first. He has a pulse and steady breathing, but his left hand is a burnt husk, melded to the sleeve of his nanite suit, small burn lines stretch up to his face, across his cheek. Tony is in much worse shape. His entire right side burnt, the metal of his suit fused to him in places from his chest to his face, part of his ear missing. The damages match, like together they held something that exploded in their hands.

Like together they held the power of the infinity stones five years ago.

“Jesus Christ Peter what have you done?” Rhodey whispers.

* * *

 

Rhodey watches as Doctor Strange portals in. He has Tony’s head in his lap. Tony who is still awake, gasping and gurgling for breath, who won’t take his eyes off Peter. Rhodey doesn’t know how bad the damage is, he doesn’t know if Tony or Peter will survive. He doesn’t know if he will have to call Pepper to tell her Tony finally came back, just to die.

Strange waves his hands in complex patterns and orange magic flows through and around them. The magic reaches Tony and Peter. Green sparkling rings form around their bodies, like magician hoops around a lady. Tony relaxes, the pain gone from his face.

Together, they get them to the infirmary. Strange has to rely on the controls for the automated armatures for the delicate parts, his hands still shake too much for surgery. But FRIDAY is exact in interpreting his movements. It’s not easy taking off their uniforms to get to their injuries. Half of the nanites retract, but the most damaged nanites just crumble to dust at their touch, which is still better than the ones that are seared into the skin and muscles.

They work on Tony first, against his demands to save Peter. (He may be Iron Man, but he is still just baseline human. He’s in more danger than Peter, whose body is already healing thanks to his enhancement) Strange has to put Tony in a magical stasis just to get him to stay still. It’s better than any anaesthesia. They scrape off the damaged suits, and the damaged skin. They run a line of donor blood to his left arm. His right arm is a horrific mess but Rhodey can’t look away. He knows even before Strange tells him, that Tony is going to lose his arm. There are some things even Tony can’t fix.

* * *

 

Rhodey hasn’t felt his legs since 2016. He can walk and run, has a fulfilling and thrilling life. But he still can’t feel his legs.

Tony will make himself a prosthetic within a week and be dazzling them all once again with his presence.

He has to.

* * *

 

Strange spends hours cleaning Tony up, sealing wounds, stabilizing damage. Slowly, Tony looks less like he will keel over any minute. White bandages are wrapped around Tony stump, up to his shoulder. His torso is wrapped. His head. An intravenous line is placed in his left arm, an oxygen cannula around his face.

* * *

 

At some point, Pepper walks up to Rhodey, put her arm around his shoulder in a hug. He remembers it hours later. Right now she stands, next to him. Watching. Waiting. Crying.

Happy is watching over Morgan with Peter’s Aunt May. Pepper won’t tell Morgan her father is back until she knows he will be okay. Morgan doesn’t need to be told that a father she barely remembers is back just to watch him die.

* * *

 

Strange keeps Tony in stasis while he works on Peter. It’s kinder that way. When Strange is done, hours and hours later, Tony and Peter are swaddled in bandages, in beds side by side. Rhodey made sure Tony could see Peter when he wakes up. There’s no doubt that will be one of his first questions upon waking. Strange keeps their charred limbs bandaged and immobilized. He wants to see if Helen Cho’s cradle will do anything to save the limbs.

* * *

 

Helen Cho can’t save their arms. Peter has his left arm amputated at the elbow. Strange doesn’t know if it will grow back. Tony has his right arm amputated at the shoulder. Later, Tony will brainstorm with Barnes about prosthetic limb functionality. Right now, Tony just does everything with his left hand.

* * *

 

Rhodey isn’t there when Tony wakes up.

That’s okay. Pepper and Morgan are.


End file.
